MINNEAPOLIS — There's no doubt about it: Luka Doncic very much has that dog in him.
In a career that, at just 25 years old, has already seen the Dallas Mavericks guard pull off repeated end-game heroics, his three-point dagger at the end of Game 2 of the NBA's 2024 Western Conference Finals -- lifting the Mavs up 109-108 over the Timberwolves -- is an immediate entry into all-time Mavs lore.
It's not only that the shot put the Mavs up 2-0 in the series after two games on the road -- and moved the franchise just two games away from its first return to the NBA Finals since the Dirk Nowitzki-led title run of 2011 -- it's that it came with such swagger, too.
Doncic's step-back over a skating-in-isolation Rudy Gobert -- the NBA's reigning Defensive Player of the Year -- was the nail in the coffin of Dallas' down-by-18 comeback win.
And Luka knew it right away.
As he skipped back downcourt after burying the game-winner, many an online NBA observer noted, it appeared he had some choice words for his downtrodden defender:
It's not the first time Doncic has beefed with -- or stunted on -- his fellow European.
Here's how Gobert, wearing a stiff upper lip, described Doncic's three after the fact: "We switched on the pick-and-roll, and I was on iso on Luka, and he hit a big-time shot. I let my team down on the last play. They believed in me to get a stop, and he scored -- and he scored a three, something that he does very well. I'm definitely taking that responsibility. I'd like to be better in that situation... just get a stop, be better."
Here's how Doncic summed up his own thoughts on the moment to TNT, referencing Gobert specifically: "He's long. He can't move. I can't move fast, but I can move faster than him."
OK, but --again -- what did he say to Gobert in the moment?
To hear Doncic tell it, whatever he said, it wasn't English:
Oh, you cry foul on Doncic's claim? Don't worry, you're not alone: Mavs center Daniel Gafford agrees with you.
Asked after the game about Doncic's trash-talking ways, Gafford acknowledged that his teammate can spit in various tongues, with his native Slovenian being a regular offender: "Especially when he starts talking his own language," Gafford said, "that's a different kind of trash talk."
But on what language Doncic shouted at Gobert on Friday, and whether it was English? Gafford couldn't argue against that.
"From what I heard," Gafford said, "he stuck to English."
Take it from the guy who actually hit the craziest shot of Game 2: Luka knew exactly what he shouted at Gobert in Game 2.